Inside China

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To denounce one's past is to doom one's present; and when one's present is doomed, one's future is ruined. That is not something from Confucius or from a Chinese fortune cookie. It is the battle cry of a fierce war on "historical nihilism" being waged by the Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping, who has a doctorate degree in "scientific socialism" from China's prestigious Tsinghua University, the intramural rival of its next-door neighbor, Peking University.

Last month's stock market crash in China was without any doubt an economic war against China covertly waged by the United States, with the direct objective of subverting the ruling Communist Party, according to the most powerful leader of China's massive state-owned corporate enterprises.

He is the most enigmatic figure in Taiwanese politics. Admired by many, loathed by some but courted by most, he has commanded attention in all of the island's key elections and helped decide the outcome in the most crucial ones since Taiwan embraced full-blown democracy in the 1990s.

Without the usual boisterous and contentious primary election, and without the traditional backroom wheeling and dealing among party elders and luminaries to decide their next presidential candidate, Taiwan's ruling political party, the KMT, has moved with uncharacteristic alacrity to select a political lightweight to compete against opposition Democratic Progressive Party heavyweight candidate Tsai Ing-wen in next year's election.

The worst domestic maritime tragedy since China's Communists came to power — the still-unexplained capsizing of a Yangtze River cruise ship that claimed more than 440 lives in the dark of night June 1 — has generated worldwide media attention.

The credibility of the Communist Party's long list of revolutionary military heroes is being challenged as never before by the Chinese people, who are obliged to endure state-sponsored propaganda and forced emulation of these larger-than-life communist model soldiers from kindergarten on.

China's sustained, state-mobilized anti-Japanese propaganda campaign, one that has permeated the main news, arts and entertainment industries, has run into a wave of domestic criticism, as many World War II-themed anti-Japanese dramas on television have come across as bizarre, vulgar, even pornographic kitsch. The campaign is causing public revulsion and condemnation.

A French naval flotilla left Singapore and arrived in Shanghai on May 9 for a weeklong visit, fueling a wave of speculation that the timing of the rare naval visit, the first since 2013, signals the two sides may be ready to cut a deal.

The story Monday of North Korea's obese leader, Kim Jong-un, scaling a 9,000-foot mountain — in leather shoes and neat dress coat, on a pair of legs that had undergone operation and needed a walking cane only a couple of months ago — has stirred up a firestorm on China's Internet, the world's largest closed cyber community with over 600 million users known as Netizens.

In a free country, the "Mr. Subliminal" act on "Saturday Night Live" brought Kevin Nealon fame and fortune. But a similar act in communist China has caused a major national scandal, prompting the outraged government to promise the harshest punishments for the offense.

A diplomatic dispute has erupted over China's and Turkey's competing claims for 17 ethnic Uighurs who were detained in Thailand on charges of illegal border-crossing. Each is demanding the Uighurs' return.

A swift but steady Chinese military buildup is taking place along the China-Myanmar border after three Myanmarese air force bombings killed at least four and wounded eight at a Chinese village in one week.

A Myanmar government MiG-29 fighter plane on March 8 flew over a Chinese village in the border province of Yunnan and dropped a bomb on a house believed to be a safe haven for the Kokang rebels. No major casualty was announced by either the Chinese or the Burmese side.

China has unleashed its anger on the man President Xi Jinping has been trying his best to cultivate in recent months, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after the Indian leader on Feb. 20 visited the Indian state called Arunachal Pradesh — the place Beijing calls "South Tibet" and insists is its "sacred and indivisible territory."

A Chinese mining tycoon, his brother and three associates were executed Feb. 9 in China for "gangster crimes." But it is clear the tycoon's association with China's former security czar Zhou Yongkang was the real reason for their fate.

Sri Lanka's presidential election earlier this month dealt China a major blow as opposition leader Maithripala Sirisena, who had made curtailing excessive Chinese influence the main focus of his campaign, won a surprise victory over the Beijing-friendly incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa.